“Jacob Smith, Jon Erickson, and Kathryn Goldman’s ambitious new film … point[s] to a turbulent time – but also, perhaps, a singular moment of opportunity, if coalitions and alliances can unite sometimes disparate voices in a coherent public conversation, to forge a mandate for effective change.” - Jay Craven, Vermont Public Radio

“Giant seriously rouses when it looks at Black Lives Matter or the story of West Virginian Sabrina Shrader.” - Georgia Strait

The filmmakers invite us to see the people in this film “as an arm, maybe a little toe, of the rousing giant, joining unionists, Black Lives Matter activists, academics, environmentalists, LGBTQ advocates, the quite religious and the not religious, all manner of just plain decent hard-working people, red staters, blue staters, rural dweller and urbanites, and yes, one or two quoted members of the liberal media, in channeling [the] anger into a politics of inclusivity.” - The Tyee

“Waking the Sleeping Giant is so important. It’s turning to the people on the ground. It is the good kind of reality TV.” - Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

We want to offer the hugest of thanks to the DOXA film festival for hosting our international premiere ... they put on a great festival, they treated the filmmakers and audience members alike really well, and Waking the Sleeping Giant screened in two fantastic Vancouver theaters. It's never looked and sounded so good.

And we are grateful the film was received so warmly at both screenings. Roughly 300 people attended between the two screenings, nearly everyone remained for the Q&A after the film, and when they finally kicked us out of the theater (so the next film could start) we ended up in the lobby with long lines of folks who had more questions and comments. The film tells some really important stories, and it was gratifying that so many people (Canadians and Americans alike) found moving and inspiring.

The Sleeping Giant had its international premiere last night at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver, Canada. It looked and sounded amazing on the beautiful SFU projection system. We are grateful to DOXA for inviting us to the festival and promoting the film, and to the audience of 200 for being part of the event.

If you happen to be in Vancouver but couldn’t make last night's screening, you have another chance today: 12:30pm at The Annex (823 Seymour Street), which is also a really nice theater with a terrific projection and audio system.

DOXA festival-goers starting to fill in the SFU theater at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts for the international premiere.

We had a couple of nice media hits over the past few days, as well, which no doubt helped turn out folks to see the film:

Yesterday the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation hosted producer Jacob Smith for an interview about the film and about the state of the American progressive movement. We'll get this online soon.

On Monday, Vancouver’s North Shore News ran a story about the three DOXA screenings, including Waking the Sleeping Giant, that are part of the Trumped! What the $%*%(!! Now? film series at the festival.

Turns out that Waking the Sleeping Giant received the "Best Feature" award at the Thin Line Fest! We are feeling humbled and grateful, and especially appreciative of the many people who worked on the crew or contributed financially. And we are deeply grateful to the many, many folks who allowed us into their lives to film, or sat down for interviews, or helped us make crucial connections.

And just as importantly, we are pleased because we feel so strongly that these are stories in need of telling. This was a great way to begin sharing the film with the world.

Thank you Thin Line Fest (and special thanks to the inimitable Stanton Brasher, the festival's programming director, for taking such good care of us)!

We can't say enough about our time in Denton, Texas. The Thin Line Fest team was terrific and super friendly and did a great job with the festival. Everyone we met in Denton, including other filmmakers, festival-goers, and random Denton residents, were super friendly as well. The festival itself was loaded with great films and music. It was a perfect festival for our U.S. (and world) premiere.

And what a premiere it was! Amy Goodman joined by Facetime and offered an enthusiastic introduction to the film. The theater itself was a gorgeous mid-century art house, and Sleeping Giant looked and sounded really, really good. The large audience (despite the late 9pm start time) seemed genuinely moved, we had a bunch of engaged questions during the Q&A, and the entire time afterward at the festival afterward people kept talking to us about the film.

We couldn't have asked for a better premiere - thank you Thin Line and Denton!

University of Vermont Professor Jon Erickson has never been a fan of the status quo.

As an ecological economist, his national and international scholarship has challenged the core assumptions of mainstream economics. As a social entrepreneur, he has helped build interdisciplinary research-to-action collaborations between reluctant academic, government and civil society partners. Now as an up-and-coming independent filmmaker, he’s gauging the strength a new era of progressive politics in America he thinks may be waking at just the right moment to seed the social movement of a generation.

“Waking the Sleeping Giant: the Making of a Political Revolution” is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the growing strength of the American progressive movement. Erickson wrote, directed and filmed the documentary over the last three years with former Senate staffer Jacob Smith, veteran political consultant Kathryn Goldman, and a team of cinematographers from around the country.

The film will be released on April 19 when it opens the Thin Line Fest in Denton, Texas, followed on May 11 by an international premiere at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver in the event's “Spotlight on Troublemakers” series. A Vermont premiere is in the works for late May and a screening is planned for the People’s Summit in Chicago in June, an annual gathering of thousands of progressive activists.

The film is structured around the arc of Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, beginning in January 2015 before Sanders had officially announced his candidacy, following him to the Iowa caucuses and through the primary campaign to the Democratic National Convention in July 2016.

Along the way, it chronicles the elements of a re-energized progressive movement in America through personal stories of struggle for democractic principles and reform, including Black Lives Matter activists in Los Angeles fighting institutionalized racism in the police force; a grassroots political candidacy of a West Virginian rising from generational poverty against all odds to run for state office; and a wave of progressive activism among Millennials to protect voting rights and confront the corrupting influence of money in politics head on.

The film features interviews with notable progressive thinkers and commentators, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Dream Corps co-founder Van Jones, Democracy Now!’s host Amy Goodman, and host and founder of The Young Turks Cenk Uygur. Rising voices in the progressive movement appear along the way, including Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington, and key players in the Sanders “Political Revolution” such as The People for Bernie’s Winnie Wong and Becky Bond and Zack Exley, co-authors of the new book Rules for Revolutionaries.

Erickson, who crisscrossed the country making the film, says it was a “crash course in the state of American politics,” but also a reminder that, “we are a democracy that still aspires to care for and love our neighbors, all our neighbors and all our communities.” He witnessed firsthand, “the insurgency of the Sanders campaign on first principles of justice and respect that we should take to heart against a backdrop of a two-party system that has lost touch with basic grade-school lessons on the aspirations of American democracy.”

The core filmmaking team also includes Smith, former senior adviser to Sen. Sanders and former mayor of Golden, Colorado; Goldman, a campaign consultant in Idaho who helps progressive candidates campaign in red states; Brad Johanson, nine-time Emmy award-winning editor; and Erickson’s son Jon as director of photography.

Filmmaker Jacob Smith said the crew behind Waking the Sleeping Giant wasn't sure what kind of movie they were making back in 2014.

"When we started, it was clear something important was happening," Smith said. "I was working for Bernie [Sanders] when this started. He was doing these town hall meeting that were incredibly well-received. ... But it was more than that, bigger than that. In red states, we were seeing minimum wage initiatives pass at the polls. And in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chevron basically bankrolled a city council election, and they lost and lost in a major way."

Waking the Sleeping Giant: The Making of a Political Revolution opens Denton's Thin Line Fest with a world-premiere screening at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Campus Theatre, 214 W. Hickory St.

DOXA is a documentary-only festival, which one participating film director describes as "a mind-feast." Our film is part of DOXA's Spotlight on Troublemakers series, celebrating "people who act up, resist and fight on."

The entire team is headed to Texas in a couple of weeks for the US premiere at the Thin Line Fest. A lot is happening. Please check out the first teaser for the film that we just posted on our website--and know that you helped make it happen!

Waking The Sleeping Giant will be screening at The People's Summit in June in Chicago. Some of the remarkable people in the film will be at the summit, including Bernie and Van Jones. Bernie is actually headlining the summit!

Stay tuned for more updates about premieres. A Vermont premiere is in the works now, and we will keep you posted. Follow us on Facebook for the timeliest updates regarding festival happenings and for details about a premiere coming to your town!

We have some great news: Waking The Sleeping Giant has been accepted to another film festival, the Thin Line Fest in Denton, Texas. This is Texas' largest documentary film festival, and it also includes a music and photo festival.

And we are even more thrilled to announce that our film will be the opening film for the 5-day festival on April 19, 2017. This is our U.S. premiere! We will share more details about this particular festival and others in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

"It's a wrap." Those are exciting words for any group of filmmakers and the Waking the Sleeping Giant team was incredibly excited to say them out loud. We have completed production (which is just film-speak for being done with filming)!

We closed out the production phase of the film with an interview of Slate's insightful chief political correspondent, Jamelle Bouie, filming in Washington, D.C. during the inauguration and the Women's March, and our final day was in Los Angeles at an L.A. police commission meeting.

Waking The Sleeping Giant is in the final phase of production and we can see the home stretch. We filmed on election night in key locations, and we now have 70 minutes of the film cut!

The November election’s outcome has highlighted how relevant and urgent our film is—the progressive movement must figure out how to move ahead at this critical juncture and our film is documenting the struggle.

Recent interviews include former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, actor and activist Danny Glover, and veteran political organizer and creator of the #FeelTheBern hashtag Winnie Wong. Last week, we filmed an extraordinary meeting of progressive activists from around the country working on where we go from here.

We have started submitting “work in progress” versions of the film to festivals around the country as we close in on the end of production!

Deepest thanks to you all for supporting this important project!

Director/Producer Jacob Smith with Robert Reich at his office, University of CA, Berkeley.

Tim Wilson on the scene in DC at the Hands Off Medicare press conference last week.

We want to share some exciting news about our documentary film Waking the Sleeping Giant and to ask for your help.

When we started working on the film more than two years ago, we felt that something important was happening across the country even before Bernie announced his historic presidential run. And indeed something remarkable is happening. Bernie’s incredible race established, as Van Jones said to us so eloquently, an elevated set of aspirations across an entire generation of people hungry for big ideas. Those aspirations will influence our politics for decades. And we’ve been bearing witness to bottom-up movement building all over the country, from Bernie’s campaign to Democracy Spring and Black Lives Matter, to the fight for economic fairness.

Dr. Melina Abdullah, an activist and leader with Black Lives Matter, speaks at the ongoing protest/occupation of Los Angeles City Hall demanding the firing of the police chief in response to repeated police shootings of an unarmed African-Americans.

We are now cranking hard on a work-in-progress version for submission to a number of festivals this fall. We’ll continue to film through the fall and complete the final version of the film in December. As soon as we premier the film at a festival in 2017 we’ll hit the road with a festival tour and kick off our outreach campaign, inspiring and engaging some of the many millions who were fired up by Bernie’s race, by one of the remarkable emergent movements like Democracy Spring and Black Lives Matter, or by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the first female President.

Greetings! Our crew has been busy this month. We interviewed Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now! Goodman, a giant who has been documenting the movements that matter for 20 years, spoke eloquently about the the time we are living in now, the importance of the Sanders Revolution, the other social and political movements happening now, and the value of independent media.

Producer Jon Erickson and journalist Amy Goodman on the set of her award-winning show, Democracy Now! in New York City.

Among those arrested for the first time included Harvard Law School professor and former Democratic presidential candidate Larry Lessig. In the USA Today interview, Lessig quipped, "I'm a law professor. I don't get arrested." Actress Rosario Dawson summed up the feeling of many sitting-in: "This week, we're taking back our democracy."

Crew member Tim Wilson with Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers.

After a week of sit-ins and mass arrests, Democracy Spring joined with Democracy Awakening for a April 17th rally on the National Mall to keep the pressure on Congress. Our DC crew member Tim Wilson filmed the rally and caught up with some of the activists and reformers we've been interviewing, including United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta.

The caucus was full of first-time voters and caucus participants. More than one person we interviewed spoke about the potential impact at the state and local level that this historic turnout could signal for Idaho, as more people become active voters. The Sleeping Giant Wakes!

Idahoans doing democracy at the 2016 Ada County Democratic presidential caucus, the largest caucus in US history.